Quaternary Faulting beneath Memphis, Tennessee

A geologic investigation of the city of Memphis and south-ern Shelby County, Tennessee r veals Quaternary faulting. Structure contour maps and cross-sections of the top of the Pliocene-Pleistocene Upland Complex (Lafayette gravel), Eocene Upper Claiborne Group, and Eocene Lower Claiborne Group reveal two 20-m down-to-the-northwest faults that strike approximately N30 ~ The western fault is herein called the Memphis Fault and the eastern, the Ellendale Fault. The Ellendale Fault is projected to pass beneath the Wolf River flood plain in east Memphis. At this location, a cut bank exposes flood-plain sands that are folded into an anticline with a wavelength of ~ 100 m, an amplitude of ~4 m, and a hinge oriented 10~176 q-he folded sands are truncated by overly-ing, flat-lying, clayey silt overbank sediments. A 1-m-wid